


The Hidden Tiger

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-27
Updated: 2003-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-27 09:29:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12078315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Justin gives Brian a final warning.





	The Hidden Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Wake up Brian Kinney. I'm calling you, I'm warning you. I am so sick of this. First you threw yourself down on the couch, then you grabbed the remote and flipped through endless channles, then you closed you're eyes and fell asleep, like you've fallen asleep may times before when I was waiting to talk to you.

 

Wake up. If you wake up I'll be able to see the color of your eyes. Are they green? Brown? It's strange, we've been together almost seven years but right now, in this precise moment, I can't remember what color they are. I can't remember how they look when they're watching me. It's amazing how many things one can forget.

 

I'm begging you to wake up. You don't know it, but there's a great danger waiting for you, right here, in this room. There's a tiger right next to you. At first it was small and you could handle him as if he were a small cat. But it's been growing little by little, day after day and now it has claws and fangs and it is angry. It would scare if you were to open your eyes right now and see it in front of you. It scared me sometimes.

 

But I'm not afraid of it anymore, nor do I fear the things it might do. That's why it would be better for you to wake up now Brian Kinney. It's not fair that, night after night, you ignore me while I wait patiently for you to notice that I still exist. That's   
what has been nurturing this tiger, giving him size and strength. That, and a million other little, and not so little things. For example, never noticing anymore when I'm wearing a new shirt which I bought simply because I remember you used to like that color on me or forgetting to kiss me in the mornings or when you return from a business trip.

Or like spending hours in the same room with me without speaking a single word to me. Like forgetting all our anniversaries, like today. Today, that marks our seventh year together.

 

You have a good memory. You never forget anything, you know the exact date you bought your car and your latest Armani suit. You remember on which day you bought your bed. But sometime ago you completely forgot the day you acquired your partner.

 

And all these things have made a beast grow inside of me, killing the tenderness and awakening the resentment and sometimes, even the hate.

 

Can you imagine what it is to live next to someone who feels like a caged tiger?

 

Sometimes I have some wild impulses. I would like to strangle you with these two hands that have so often painted your picture, when you come in or come out without noticing me. I could tear out your eyes when they look at me without any emotion in them, as if I was just another piece of furniture. Now that I see you sleeping like this, on our anniversary, without having spoken a single kind word to me, I could really kill you.

 

I don't do it because I'm still civilized enough, but inside me there's a beast that wants to hurt you, to destroy you. It's the tiger in me Brian Kinney.

 

I know that if I were to wake you up and tell you what day it is, you'd roll your eyes and tell me not to be such a damn drama princess. Maybe you'd even tell me to fuck off. That's why I won't wake you. I'm afraid of what I'd do to you if I hear you say those things right now.

 

If you don't wake up on your own, in five minutes, something's going to happen. I'm going to leave you, Brian Kinney. I'll go out that door and you'll never see me again.

 

I watch you while you sleep and wonder what it was about you that made me fall in love with you. Maybe it was the way you kissed me, like you couldn't get enough of my taste, or the way you looked at me when we were alone and you thought I wasn't looking at you.

 

You used to say that you were on to me... or was it me who used to say that? I don't remember any more. I don't remember because the tiger killed everything inside of me, just like it's going to kill everything between us if you don't wake up, on your own, in four minutes. You're going to lose your lover, your cook, your business partner. You'll lose all of them forever.

 

Seven years ago, maybe even just five years ago, you still were the perfect partner for me. Or maybe you just seemed that way to me. Our love wasn't the dead thing it is now. You killed it Brian Kinney, you, with your indifference, your coldness and your silences.

 

I'm going to leave you, to walk away from you forever if you don't wake up in the next three minutes and, if you were to wake up, can't remember what day it is.

 

Don't think I won't do it. If sometimes I think I could easily kill you, how wouldn't I be able to abandon you?

 

Don't underestimate me. I'm a talented artist, my work is very much in demand and I have friends who would gladly help me if I were suddenly homeless. So don't think that I need your money Brian Kinney. Your money is not what I want from you. 

 

I'll leave if you don't open your eyes in the next two minutes.

 

Now that I've made up my mind the tiger inside of me feels satisfied. I can study your features while you sleep peacefully without feeling the bitterness that has poisoned me these last years. The bitterness I felt tonight when you came home empty handed and without remembering what day this is. I don't want or need a gift, a simple word would've been enough. But you didn't say anything. You fell asleep, as if this was just another day, as if nothing special had happened on this day, seven years ago.

 

You look younger when you're sleeping and strangely vulnerable. You look so much like Gus just now that it makes me smile. You need a haircut, your bangs almost cover your eyes completely. Maybe I will remember this moment for a long time and   
maybe I will miss you when I'm gone. But that will pass with time and I will forget what it was like to live with you, to sleep next to you, to make love to you.

 

If you don't wake up in one minute...

 

Now that I'm about to leave I feel sorry for you. You will miss me Brian Kinney and you will be very lonely without me.

 

There's still 30 seconds left and you're not waking up. So, I'm leaving now. You will find out when you finally wake up and see the note I left for you on the coffee table.

 

I will kiss you goodbye, I'll do it because you look so much like your son right now and because I loved you very much. Because not everything has been bad, no, we were truly happy once. And I'll kiss you because I have to admit that you are a good man, you are loyal to your friends and you love your family very much.

 

But, what is this? You're opening your eyes? But I barely touched your lips with mine! I can see your eyes now, they're hazel, with little green and gold specks in them. They are beautiful. I can see them very well now because your arms are holding me very close to you and you've rested your forehead on mine. And now you're kissing me again. You are brave Brian Kinney, even if you don't know it. You are kissing a tiger after all. And you do it as if you can't get enough of me, of my taste on your lips!

 

What? You want me to change? Why should I change my clothes now? Where are we going?

 

To celebrate! Celebrate what? Yes, of course I remember what day it is, but I thought you forgot. Don't look at me like that and don't call me a twat! 

 

Everyone's waiting for us? You invited all our friends to this celebration and you didn't tell me about it? 

 

Yes, I love surprises! And you've surprised me yet again. Now I have something else to celebrate: you, Brian Kinney, I'll celebrate you.

 

Because in the precise moment you woke up and you looked at me and kissed me I felt as if I was the one who was opening his eyes at last to look at you for the first time. I saw you, just like you are, just the way I have to accept you. Just the way I'll accept you from now on. Maybe you're not everything I wished you were but that doesn't matter. You are everything I need you to be.

 

And I know that you wouldn't be capable of doing what I was about to do. You wouldn't just leave me without a warning, you wouldn't destroy what we have without a single thought. I'm ashamed for thinking that, for almost leaving you. But you see, it was the beast, the tiger crouching inside of me. He is made of anger and of frustrated illusions, a beast fed by my blindness. But I'm not ashamed of having it inside of me because, without that beast, I wouldn't have almost walked out the door and then I wouldn't have remembered how it feels to be kissed by you when you wake up and I would've had to live the rest of my life without you.

 

Maybe you don't love me the way I love you Brian Kinney, or maybe you love me even more but I know that I can feed the tiger inside of me with my love and make him, not your enemy, but a protector of our love.


End file.
